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  #31  
Old 04-24-2009, 08:33 PM
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Well, so far so good. Got two pies and a couple blades invarious states. Some else needs to bring the ice cream (vanilla please )

Apple:


Pecan:


Jim


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  #32  
Old 04-24-2009, 11:51 PM
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Those look pretty good. I was going to smoke a venison hind quarter, but I'll be gone most of tomorrow. No time to thaw/marinade let alone cook now!

Hmmmm...we do have a big duck pond with a bunch of wild ducks that decided to stick around for good.

Test fired the melting furnace this evening. I couldn't get it over 2500*F. I need a better blower. My hairdryer can't handle the back pressure of the smaller furnace volume. My big one up in Bryan had twice the volume. I could hit 3000* when set up properly. I get over 12 psi-gauge and the temp starts dropping as the atmosphere becomes too rich. I melted the end off the dryer from the hot back-gassing at one point!

Shhhh.....my wife has a higher powed one upstairs. She just went to bed now so I may just have to take it out and try it out. She'll be out all tomorrow morning. I need a neutral burn at 15psig to get over 2800*.

The melt will be cast iron, 1095 and a touch of M2 pieces for the carbide formers. For this mix, I need 2800* for fluidity.


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  #33  
Old 04-26-2009, 10:58 PM
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Don, thanks for holding the hammer-in! Great weather - except for a little excitement from the wind - great turnout, and a lot of fun had by all. (It's not every day you see a leaf blower converted to power a forge.) Got to see some great knives and Drac did show up with his pies, as promised. Daigle was MIA; I think we may have to just go drag him out to the next get-together. I lost track of the number of forges that got built.

Thanks again for the great time!


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  #34  
Old 04-27-2009, 05:07 AM
Wade Holloway Wade Holloway is offline
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Don thanks for a great time yesterday. It was allot of fun to meet everyone and actually put a face to all the names. The pie along was worth the trip. Don again thank you for all of your hard work and donations toward our forges. Not sure I will have the knife from it posted by next weekend. When arriving home I was informed I have to take her somewhere next weekend. To all the ones that did not go, you really missed a great time.
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  #35  
Old 04-27-2009, 07:07 AM
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Thumbs up Thanks for hosting Don.

It was cool to put some faces to the names on the forums. I learned a lot on forge construction. When I get back I?ll be looking into maybe making one for doing bar stock damascus.

I?m glad you like the pies. Sorry I had to leave quickly there but it was a long drive home. The GPS took us through about 2.5 hours of back roads until we got to 45N about 1.5 hours north of Houston. We got home about 8:30.

Jim


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  #36  
Old 04-27-2009, 09:14 AM
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Sorry I had to miss it guys. But among other things, we almost lost one of our puppies and she had to be watched very closely. In fact I'm just getting back from dropping her off at the vet again.

Sounds like you guys had a great time. Leaf blower hooked up to the forge eh? I figured Donnie would find a way to get more POWER!!!!!!!

Chris
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  #37  
Old 04-27-2009, 10:00 AM
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Chris,
If you would have come out, I would have been more than happy to give you a wonderful Springer Spaniel! In fact, I just might drive over and tie him to a tree at your house. hah! Seriously, though, I hope your puppy is doing better!

We built three forges...well...2 and a half I guess. Although, John's can be used on it's side for knives, or upright for crucibles so it kinda counts as two!

We learned a couple things about reducer bells and MIG tips. Many of the current MIG tips have a bevel just behind the threads before you step up to the main body of the tip. These bevels are wide enough that they can leak, even with teflon tape. This cause really odd effects with a burner! Similarily, the reducing bells now have a very sharp edge where it transitions from the bell to the section that threads onto the pipe. this interferes with the propane and is causing eddie currents as opposed to funneling and accellerating the gas like it should. This results in a rich/slow flame. (Wade, I'll send you an email regarding this.)

Now, the fun part..the crucible melt. I made a smaller version of my big crucible furnace. Unfortunately, my hair dryer maxes out at about 12 psig propane through a 0.030" MIG tip. This results in ~2600-2700*F. This was just shy of enough heat to melt everything in the crucible. Everything in contact with the lower walls of the crucible failed to melt. The cast iron was more than fluid, the 1095 was molten except for the strips along the walls. The M2 seems to have melted in as well. I needed about 100 more degrees. Part of the problem was the lack of ITC-100 coating in the furnace. I'm not sure where that got put when I moved. If I had about another 20 cfm of blower, I could have bumped up the gas to about 15-20 psi and been fine as well. Unfortunately, the only thing with more output than my mighty hair dryer was a leaf blower. I did manage to get the gas/air mix balanced with 47 psi. However, with that much fuel-air combustion trying to happen in a 2 gallon confined space...something has to give. When we finally got all the blower hose connections sealed, the gas line instantly blew off the burner. I didn't know I could still move that fast! Needless to say, I'll wait until I get a ~150 cfm blower before I try the wootz issue again in that furnace. I guess it would be easier to just get my big one and bring down.

Other than that, the only "excitement was the wind trying to blow the pavillion up on top of my garage!

I wnder if we could have taken the leafblower, 100lb cylinder and the pavillion and made a rocket powered ultralight!?

Glad everyone could make it out!

And don't forget....the end results don't really matter too much because, well, it's just fun to melt s**t, regardless!


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  #38  
Old 04-27-2009, 01:17 PM
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SBuzek SBuzek is offline
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Yep I think everybody had a good time and Drac I believe that was the best pecan pie I have ever had,and I've had a bunch. Now tobuild a table for my forge.HMMMM...wonder if th wife would miss her patio table? WE shall see.
Don Thanks for a great day with a bunch of other knife nuts.
Stan


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  #39  
Old 04-29-2009, 06:37 PM
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Will you guys did it. his weekend ot me back into the shop to finish up a couple of those blades. Not great but they will cut things. All just cosmetic issues.

http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=50472

Jim


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